Part 9
The Bulliest Dreams
Lizzie could not avoid it. She needed the book for her essay, it was due in Monday and it was now late Saturday afternoon. She would have to go to the bookshop. With resignation she trudged up the street to the shop, outside she took a deep breath and pushed open the door, the yellow tie and black shirt hit her as she came through the door. He was looking straight at her, automatically she flashed a smile and hurriedly turned and went to look for the book. She found it quickly and went to the till to pay.
"Ah, you are studying the American Civil War? Very interesting period. Robert E. Lee probably ranks with Wellington as one of the great generals, unlike Grant. What happened in the South after that war, you know the re-construction period, is also fascinating. Have you read Mark Twain?"
Lizzie took a deep breath. Was he trying to be friendly, being a good bookseller knowledgeable and interesting or.... "Yes I've read some of his books."
From under the counter he produced an omnibus version of 'Tom Sawyer' and the 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. "You should read these," he said leaning forward. Surely he was not really looking down her cleavage?
Lizzie nodded; she did not really want to say again that she had already read them.
"So you didn't like the 'Swiss Family Robinson' then? Thought I'd see you on their island," he looked straight at Lizzie and the smile dropped from his face, "but I didn't."
"I'm sorry, what do you mean?" Lizzie was really taken aback.
"What did you dream of last night?" Conrad demanded.
"I really can't remember and I don't think I want to discuss such ephemera with strangers. It's none of your business."
Conrad's smile re-appeared, "Sorry, I'm just interested in dreams."
Lizzie thought there was more to it than that but she was certainly not going to prolong the conversation. She paid for her book and escaped back to write her essay. She worked long into the night and it was one o'clock before she looked up from her desk and realised it was way past her bedtime. She fell into bed and a deep sleep.
Lizzie wondered where her nocturnal mind had taken her, what was she dreaming about now and where she might be? She sat up and rubbed her eyes and looked around. It was the cool gray dawn, and there was a delicious sense of repose and peace in the deep pervading calm and silence of the woods. Not a leaf stirred; not a sound obtruded upon great Nature's meditation. Beaded dewdrops stood upon the leaves and grasses. A white layer of ashes covered a fire, and a thin blue breath of smoke rose straight into the air. There beside her on the bare ground were two boys fast asleep.
She stood, far away in the woods a bird called; another answered; presently the hammering of a woodpecker was heard. Gradually the cool dim gray of the morning whitened, and as gradually sounds multiplied and life manifested itself. "Now where am I this time, Wild Cat Island?" She walked through the trees towards a glimmer of water as Nature shook off sleep.
Out of the trees she stood on the sand of the river's shore. She was amazed at the width of the river. That it was a river and not a lake was obvious from the water's movement and the swirls of current further out, but it was wider than she thought possible.
From behind her she heard a shout, "There's Huck, come on Joe." Lizzie's eyes widened. She was Huckleberry Finn, surely not, her hand dropped to her thighs, no she was a girl not a boy, she felt her breast, nothing there, so she was a young girl on Jackson's Island. 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' had actually been one of her favorite books as a girl though that was not something she would have told Conrad in the bookshop. She loved the boys' adventures and had often played at being pirates hidden away on Jackson's Island with Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Joe Harper.
Three miles below St. Petersburg, at a point where the Mississippi River was a trifle over a mile wide, there was a long, narrow, wooded island, with a shallow bar at the head of it. It was not inhabited; it lay far over toward the further shore, abreast a dense and almost wholly unpeopled forest. So Jackson's Island was chosen by Tom Sawyer and his crew to run away from home and be pirates.
The other pirates came up and with a shout called her to join them. They all clattered away down the shore Lizzie running with them, Huck and Joe pulling off clothes as they ran. Lizzie was a bit reticent, but it was a dream after all, and in a minute or two all were stripped and chasing after and tumbling over each other in the shallow limpid water of the white sandbar. In the way of children, in that the trivial things are not important and then suddenly are, it took the boys quite some time to notice Lizzie was different.
"Hey Huck, you're... ain't that right Tom, he's a she," called Joe. Tom stopped his running and splashing and looked at Lizzie.
"Never knew that Joe. How come Hucky?"
"Dunno," said Lizzie, " seems that's how it's always been. Anythin' wrong with girls?"
"Can women be pirates?" said Joe.
"I reckon they can. And don't they wear the bulliest clothes! Oh no! All gold and silver and di'monds," said Tom, with enthusiasm.
"She's not got a stitch on," said Joe.
"That's 'cos we're swimmin'."
And back to swimming they went, the fact of Tom, or rather Lizzie, being a girl quickly irrelevant.
They came back to camp wonderfully refreshed, glad-hearted, and ravenous; and they soon had the camp-fire blazing up again. Tom found a spring of clear cold water close by, and they made cups of broad oak or hickory leaves, and felt that water, sweetened with such a wildwood charm as that, would be a good enough substitute for coffee. While Joe was slicing bacon for breakfast, Tom asked him to hold on a minute; Lizzie and he stepped to a promising nook in the river-bank and threw in their lines; almost immediately they had reward. Joe had not had time to get impatient before they were back again with some handsome bass, a couple of sun-perch and a small catfish—provisions enough for quite a family. They fried the fish with the bacon, and were astonished; for no fish had ever seemed so delicious before. They did not know that the quicker a fresh-water fish is on the fire after he is caught the better he is; and they reflected little upon what a sauce open-air sleeping, open-air exercise, bathing, and a large ingredient of hunger make, too.